Best known as the majority owner of Viacom and various other media conglomerates, Sumner Redstone has a net worth of $3.8 billion. Sumner Redstone is the Chairman of the National Amusements theater chain and also owns large portions of MTV, BET, CBS, Viacom, and Paramount Pictures. He also contributes large amounts to various philanthropic organizations that work with children. He's accumulated that net worth through Viacom and the various other media companies he and his family have a controlling interest in, including CBS Corporation, Viacom, MTV Networks, BET, and Paramount Pictures. Redstone's career as a media magnate began with his family's interest in the movie theater chain National Amusements. It was during his time with that corporation that he came to the conclusion that any successful media empire would be built on content, while other aspects of the media industry (such as channels of distribution) should be secondary to the foundation of content being distributed. It was during this time that Redstone coined that somewhat famous phrase that "content is king." The Redstone family has eventually ballooned to include everything from cable channels like MTV and Comedy Central, to movie studios like Paramount Pictures. Through these various enterprises, Redstone has always placed an emphasis on providing quality (or at least popular) content, and the result is the enormous net worth he has today. Redstone was recently embroiled in a controversy involving the attempted bribery of a journalist, but he remains one of the more recognizable media magnates in business today.

Sumner Murray Redstone (born Sumner Murray Rothstein; May 27, 1923) is an American media magnate. He is the majority owner and Chairman of the Board of the National Amusements theater chain. Through National Amusements, Sumner Redstone and his family are majority owners of CBS Corporation, Viacom, MTV Networks, BET, and the film studio Paramount Pictures, and are equal partners in MovieTickets.com.Sumner was born in Boston, Massachusetts, to Michael and Belle (n'ee Ostrovsky) Rothstein (his family changed their surname from the Jewish "Rothstein" to "Redstone" when Sumner was 17). Michael Rothstein owned Northeast Theater Corporation in Dedham, Massachusetts -- the forerunner of National Amusements -- and the Boston branch of the Latin Quarter Nightclub.Sumner Redstone attended the Boston Latin School, from which he was graduated first in his class. He then attended Harvard College, where he completed the studies for his baccalaureate in three years. Later, Redstone served in World War II, with a team that decoded Japanese messages for the United States Army. After this military service, he worked in Washington, D.C., and attended Georgetown University Law School. He transferred to Harvard Law School and received his LL.B., later amended to a Juris Doctor, from that institution.After completing law school, Redstone worked for the United States Department of Justice Tax Division in Washington, D.C., and San Francisco, then entered private practice. After a few years later, he joined his father's theater chain.As National Amusements grew, Redstone came to believe that content would become more important than distribution mechanisms: channels of distribution (in varied forms) would always exist, but content would always be essential (Redstone coined the phrase, "Content is king!"). He invested in Columbia Pictures, Twentieth Century Fox, Orion Pictures, and Paramount Pictures (Redstone's Viacom would buy Paramount in the 1990s), all of which turned over

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Sumner Redstone Latest News

CBS and Viacom were first brought together in 2000 by Sumner Redstone, now chairman emeritus of both firms. The two were split up again in January 2006 out of Sumner Redstone’s frustration with a sagging stock price. Moonves and Bakish have had a cordial ...

The New York-based company’s results come at a key juncture as CBS and Viacom Inc (VIAB.O), which are both controlled by Sumner Redstone and his daughter Shari, each recently announced they had set up special committees to explore a merger. CBS and ...

In the years since the break-up, media mogul Sumner Redstone contemplated bringing them back together. Redstone's health is now very poor, and his daughter Shari Redstone is the vice chair of both companies. She has been promoting the idea of a merger ...